A series of Freedom of Information requests have revealed that since the May 2021 Senedd election, where Labour formed yet another Welsh Government with the support of Plaid Cymru, 38,374 patients had died while waiting for NHS treatment.
Wales’ seven health boards have responded with data from May 2021 up to at least June 2025, with some with data up to August 2025.
Unlike other parts of the UK, Wales has a significant proportion of NHS patients waiting for over two years for treatment. The disparity in two-year NHS waits for treatment between Wales and England is still large, with NHS Wales two-year waits standing at 7,447, compared with 182 in England.
The Labour Health Minister, now First Minister, Eluned Morgan promised to eliminate these waits for the last two years (by March 2023 and again by March 2024), but failed to meet these targets and still has not.
Commenting on the Welsh Conservative research, James Evans MS, Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care said:
“These figures are a damning reflection of Welsh Labour’s failure to get to grips with our NHS.
“While it is true that some of these individuals would sadly have passed away from natural causes regardless, the fact remains that tens of thousands of patients died while still waiting for treatment in Labour-run Wales.
“The Welsh Labour Government, propped up by Plaid Cymru, has been consistently distracted with extreme, ideological vanity projects, like their default 20mph speed limit and creating more politicians, meanwhile they have ignored our NHS.
“Wales needs more doctors and nurses, not more politicians. The Welsh Conservatives would declare a health emergency, focussing the resources of the Welsh Government and the NHS on reducing these excessive waits, instead of on the ballooning bureaucracy.”
Full FOI data is available upon request – below is a table summary of the FOI data:
Number of patients who died on a waiting list since the last Senedd election (May 2021)
Health board
Deaths Since May 2021
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
14,180
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board
5,934
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board
2,234
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board
1,920
Hywel Dda University Health Board
6,353
Powys Teaching Health Board
1,182*
Swansea Bay University Health Board
6,571
TOTAL
38,374
*Powys’ data is only from May 2022, due to a ‘change in processing’, so it is missing a year of data.
The latest statistics for NHS waiting times in Wales can be found here and a link to the latest Welsh NHS performance summary can be found here (covering June and July 2025).
- The total number of patient pathways were 794,543 in June – the equivalent of nearly 1-in-4 of the Welsh population.
- The estimated number of patients waiting for treatment was ~612,200 in June.
- Two-year waits are 7,447, compared with only 182 in England. You are 380-times more likely to wait over two-years on the Welsh NHS waiting list than if you’re on the NHS waiting list in England.
- The Labour Health Minister, now First Minister, Eluned Morgan promised to effectively eliminate two-year waits by March 2023 and again by March 2024, but failed to meet these targets.
- The average (median) time patient pathways had been waiting for treatment in June was 21 weeks, compared with 13.4 weeks in England.
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